


One Night in a Strange City

by august_d



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fluff, M/M, mostly - Freeform, up to ep 18
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-15 01:13:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14780832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/august_d/pseuds/august_d
Summary: Molly has questions; Caleb doesn't have any answers. A bath is involved.





	One Night in a Strange City

Looking in the mirror, Mollymauk can’t quite be sure how old he is. It isn’t something he’d usually concern himself with. But recently, hanging around with this misfit bunch, he’s beginning to wonder.

He’s older, he’s sure, than Nott. Not that she’s clear on her age, either. But being younger than about nine years old seems very much out of the question. He tilts his head, watching his reflection move, and he wipes a smudge off the glass with his sleeve. Would it seem strange, to ask everyone else’s ages? The rest of the group seem roughly the same age. Do they? Maybe he’s older than Jester. But, then, most people act more mature than Jester. She might just be short.

A matted chunk of hair is clumped at the back of Molly’s neck, and he reaches into his bag for a hairbrush. A few bristles are missing here and there, but it’s otherwise a good brush. He could lend it to Caleb. There’s a man who’s in need of a good hairbrush. And a bath.

Molly pulls a curl down from his forehead and gives it a sniff. He could use a bath, too. Now, there’s an idea. There’s a bath in the bathroom next door, but the bathhouse isn’t too far away and he could do with stretching his legs.

The brush goes back in his bag, and the mirror goes in too. The bag goes under the bed, for lack of a better place to hide it. Then, Molly goes outside. The corridor is empty, lit by rows of dim lanterns that lead off towards the stairs, and as he walks past the girls’ room he flicks up the collar of his coat to hide his face just in case one of them might be looking. They aren’t, but it’s good to be sure. Through the door, he can make out a faint mumbling of voices, but nothing more.

At this time in the evening, only a few people are left milling around in the inn’s reception, and he walks by each of them without a problem. Much is the same in the streets outside - no one wants to be outside at a time like this. Except for Molly. Following his fairly decent sense of direction, he winds up at a bakery just before closing time. There’s a basket of discounted baked goods, and he buys them all. It’s only fair. He should have brought his bag, but that’s not a problem. He has a lot of pockets.

While he makes his way to the bathhouse, munching on a roll, a familiar orange cat steps out of the shadows and sits on the path in front of him. Molly stops in his tracks. Frumpkin avoids his gaze, licking his paw.

“Oh,” Molly says, sidestepping around the cat and moving on, patting his leg as he goes, “Are you coming for a bath, too?” He drops a crumb of bread, which Frumpkin ignores, choosing instead to trot alongside him. It’s not clear who’s leading and who’s being led.

Frumpkin isn’t such a bad companion, as far as companions go. He doesn’t talk much, but he does seem to be listening, and he doesn’t argue at all. Molly has to remind himself to watch what he’s saying around him, though. As they walk together, he really does seem to know where he’s going, although that might not necessarily be a magical cat thing. Even regular cats can be mysterious.

“We’re here,” Molly comments as they turn the corner, the entrance of the bathhouse rising up in front of them and appearing resolutely closed. The door is shut, and there are no lights to be seen. Frumpkin sits down in front of the door and turns his head to look at Molly, faint moonlight reflecting off his eyes. Two pale discs of light, staring intently as Molly mulls over his choices. Whether it’s a regular cat thing or a magical cat thing, Frumpkin doesn’t blink. He just watches.

“Shit, alright. Well, what do you have in mind?” Molly doesn’t waste time on the implications of talking to a cat. This little creature seems to know what he’s doing. He leans down and scratches Frumpkin under the chin, and the cat blinks once, slowly. Then he begins to walk again, this time making it clear that Frumpkin is leading, and Molly is following.

For a while, the streets are familiar, and then all of a sudden they’re not. It’s almost more fun this way, being able to explore the city with such an unpredictable guide. For the past week or so, they’ve been hurrying from place to place with only the destination in mind, not the journey. Isn’t that what life is about? The journey? After all, Molly has a lifetime of journeys to catch up on. And if he goes missing, he has his swords and a magical cat, and that’s just another adventure. He would have liked a bath, though.

Maze-like, the streets start to narrow, twisting and winding a little more as they go on. With his tiny frame and no-nonsense attitude, Frumpkin remains unbothered, but it’s becoming more of a concern for Molly. He can fit through fine by himself, but if someone were to block his path, there’d be no way to get around. Except for with his swords, but there’s a lingering panic in the air, and mass hysteria is the last thing the Nein need if they’re planning to ever leave this city.

As they turn a corner, Molly loses sight of Frumpkin. He’s there one moment, padding confidently ahead, and gone the next. For a second it seems as though Caleb must have snapped him out of existence, but Molly casts his gaze around the alley and finds him staring down from a low rooftop.

“Hey, come back down!” Molly calls, but Frumpkin just walks on, balancing on the edge of the rooftop like a tightrope walker. He would have done well in the circus. Molly hurries after him, following as closely as he can from the ground. The street doesn’t match Frumpkin’s path perfectly, but this cat waits for no man, and Molly does the best that he can, sometimes losing sight of his smallest friend in the deep shadows of the rooftops.

The alleyways become tighter and tighter, Molly slipping through the gaps between houses, dashing across the street when he falls too far behind, vaulting a fence when the only other option is to try to sneak past patrolling guards. Far above, he catches a glimpse of orange fur, and he says _fuck it_ and shimmies up the next conveniently pocked wall, panting heavily when he reaches the top.

From here, the city is stretched out below him like a carpet, glimmering in the night while he catches his breath. Caught between the anxious streets and the cold, bright moon, Mollymauk is on top of the world. Just vaguely he can make out the area of the city they’ve been staying in, and it seems miles and miles away. He’s not sure exactly how long he’s been travelling for, only that his legs are beginning to ache.

No time to sightsee as Frumpkin hurries onwards, and Molly continues to follow, keeping low to the rooftops to stay hidden. Some roofs aren’t particularly strong, but Molly isn’t particularly heavy, and he hasn’t had an issue so far. Still, he’s falling behind. It’s less like following now, and more like chasing. Sometimes, silhouetted against the stars, Frumpkin will turn his head and stare, waiting. He never quite lets Molly catch up.

As Molly makes a jump between one roof to the next, his foot catches a loose piece of guttering, and he slips. The world turns. A thousand street lights suddenly look a million miles below him, the street a bottomless dark river they’ll have to scrape him off of in the morning. A cold breeze catches in his hair. When did he climb so high? Arms thrown out to the sides, his fingers catch stone, scrabble for purchase, latch on. Between the one good foothold he has and the stone wing of a gargoyle, Molly hauls himself back onto the rooftop. His stomach churns. Stone cracks and grinds, and Molly lets go as the gargoyle’s wing comes away completely, tumbling into the street. An eternity passes before it hits the ground. Peering over the edge, careful not to lean too far, Molly sees the street littered with splinters of stone. He shudders, and turns around.

Wherever Frumpkin intended on leading him, this seems to be it. A long, flat roof, with a dome of glass in the centre. It doesn’t tower above the city by any means, but they must be at least three storeys up in the air. A faint light shines from the dome, so that’s where Molly heads, kneeling at the edge of the glass to peer down into the building below. Frumpkin joins him, soft little paws resting on the glass so he can get a good look.

The building is a library. Three floors, yes, each one lined with heavy bookshelves that span the entire wall. In the centre of the room, underneath the dome, is a set of staircases leading all the way down. At a first glance the library seems empty, which Molly would expect at this time of night, but the longer he looks the more he realises that the reason why he can’t see any movement is because no one is moving, not because no one is there.

On the third floor, directly underneath him, a shadow of a body stretches out across the room. From this angle he can just make out the head, and he creeps around the edge of the dome to see more clearly. Before, he’d only been able to see one side of the room, but now, from the other side, he can see a man. He’s sitting at a table, hunched a little and unmoving, surrounded by stacks and stacks of books. Frumpkin meows, the first thing he’s said all night, and he patters off across the roof. Molly stands and watches him.

Propped open in the far corner is a wooden trapdoor. Frumpkin slinks under it, disappears for a few minutes, and then resurfaces out of the shadows on the third floor of the library to hop up onto Caleb’s lap. Absentmindedly, Caleb brings up a hand to pat Frumpkin’s head. No matter how carefully he looks, Molly finds the rest of the library empty, apart from one shadowy figure on the ground floor who must be the librarian. Well, Molly’s already almost died tonight – may as well ride this out.

It’s more difficult than it looks to get through the trapdoor. Frumpkin’s lucky he didn’t have to lift the thing. Once he’s through, Molly tries to prop it back open, but it slams down instead, missing his head by an inch. In such a silent place, the bang is deafening, but Caleb doesn’t look up. He’s only a few tables away. Frumpkin startles, clearly unhappy, but Caleb seems to at least have the presence of mind to quieten him.

Caleb doesn’t notice, still, when Molly sits down on the table next to his books. He does react, however, when Molly begins to slide the book away, snapping his head upwards to face him. Caleb’s eyes are tired, puffy, and he doesn’t look angry so much as dazed. He does look a little mad, though.

“A thousand years have passed,” Molly says, flipping the book around and propping it up in his lap. It’s open on a thick wall of text, maybe two paragraphs to a page, and he doesn’t care for it at all. “This is the ghost of Mollymauk. I’ve come to take you to the afterlife.”

“Are we leaving already?” Caleb asks, voice hoarse, and he looks around the room for what must be the first time in hours, “Did they send you to find me?”

“No,” Molly says, placing the book back onto the table, “I’m just having some fun tonight. Did you want to join me?”

Caleb tugs his book closer and hunches over it, “Fun isn’t really my thing, thank you.” He has a little bit of an edge to his voice, one that Molly knows to leave well enough alone. Still, though, he came all this way for a reason. He’s not going back until he finds out what that reason is.

For now he can wait, browsing the wall of shelves until he can get some attention. Nothing catches his eye. These are books for people with a formal education. These are not the books for someone looking for fun. Unless their fun happens to be books – but that isn’t the case here. The most comfortable spot in the room appears to be a chair with a singe cushion on it, a cushion that looks as if a previous visitor must have left it there by accident, and Molly promptly sits on it, leaning back with his feet up on the table.

As he kicks his leg up, his hip clicks. It doesn’t hurt, it’s just a little unnerving. Are the bones in his leg out of place, now? No, that would hurt. Aren’t joint problems old people problems?

“Caleb,” Molly calls out to the next table over, and then louder, and then again, until finally Caleb lifts his head, “How old would you say I am? If you had to guess.”

“I would say that’s a dangerous question, Mollymauk,” Caleb says, and he goes back to his book, looking up for another second to add, “But older than Nott.”

“Huh,” Molly says, and he drops it, deciding instead to try and get Frumpkin’s attention as subtly as he can. The cat is having none of it. Molly watches Caleb read and make notes for a while, and he has a brief look around the room, but there’s nothing here to hold his interest for very long. He fusses with his clothes instead, picking off bits of dirt, readjusting the collar of his coat, making sure his jewellery’s in order. He taps on the table a few times with the edge of his nail to see how loud it sounds. It’s very loud. He sighs.

Frumpkin gets up and stretches, then hops off Caleb’s lap and onto Molly’s knees. He rubs his face against Molly’s hand for a minute or so, then flops onto his back to have his tummy kneaded like dough. For all that Caleb’s hair is a scraggly mess of knots and wilted flowers, his cat’s fur is soft and clean. Whether that’s anything to do with Caleb, it’s hard to tell. The whole cat is soft – there’s a lot of tummy to knead. Wherever he goes when he disappears, he eats well.

When Frumpkin gets tired of the fuss, he bats Molly’s hand away and curls up into a ball, but he’s still purring. Molly settles for petting a small patch of fur just underneath his ear. The gentle motion of his hand, and the calm energy of the room, and the almost rhythmic turning of pages, is enough to settle him down enough for sleep to catch up to him.

For the hour or so that he’s asleep, Molly dreams. It’s not a particularly clear dream, neither is it particularly interesting – he’s walking in a field. There’s someone walking next to him. Someone else shouts. Is he shouting? Someone is shaking his arm. That’s not a dream. Caleb is shaking his arm. He opens his eyes to see Caleb standing over him, Frumpkin draped over his shoulders like a scarf.

“Mollymauk, it’s time to go,” Caleb says, holding a stack of books in the hand that’s not currently on Molly’s arm, and as he takes his hand away he leaves a warm impression behind on Molly’s sleeve. The night is cold, and there’s a chill in the room that he hadn’t noticed before. He pulls the folds of his coat in around himself, sleep not quite letting go of him yet. His neck is stiff from being at such an awkward angle for so long.

Once he’s up, they walk together down the three flights of stairs, and Caleb hurries them to the exit without stopping to check out his books.

“Are they yours?” Molly says, once they’re out in the open air, and Caleb looks down at his stack of books, tucking them under one arm as he goes down the library steps.

“I booked them out before you woke up,” Caleb says. Molly’s a little unsure, but Caleb’s expression is hard to read, and Molly isn’t going to push him. They’re just books. The library has plenty of those. They probably won’t have time to come back before they leave the city, anyway.

At the bottom of the steps, Molly looks around the street and comes to the realisation that he has no idea how he got here. His surroundings are unfamiliar, especially in the dark, but Caleb is already starting to walk away. Molly jogs up to him to keep pace, measuring out his steps as he gets closer as if he’d been there by his side the whole time.

“I’m going back through the sewers, if that’s alright with you,” Caleb says, looking at Molly over his shoulder, and Frumpkin looks at him too.

“Fine by me,” Molly shrugs, but it’s not, it’s really not. Luckily, the entrance to the sewer isn’t too far away, and hopefully it’s a safer and more direct route than climbing rooftops. Still, Molly didn’t have to fight any monsters on the roof, only gravity, and he’s not sure how much luck he has left tonight.

Caleb climbs down first, one hand on the ladder, and Molly closes the cover after them. The only light comes in through gaps between the metal and the pavement, leaving them in darkness for the most part. A moment of fumbling, and lights come sprouting up from the darkness to lead the way. Caleb waits, watching Molly climb down the ladder and wipe the dirt from his hands onto his coat.

“I’m going to be filthy after this,” Molly whines. Something on his hands is sticky. It’s sticking to his coat. It’s not coming off.

“I thought you wanted to have fun tonight?” There’s an odd look on Caleb’s face. He might be laughing.

“This isn’t my idea of fun,” Molly says, “I don’t know how you do this. As soon as I get rich, I’m buying you a new coat.”

“It’s a way to live,” Caleb says, “This is a good coat. It’s comfortable. Buy yourself a new coat, Mollymauk.”

“I’ll just wash it, thanks,” Molly says, but Caleb is gone already. Splashing around in the sewers is no one’s idea of fun, but it’s a means to an end. Caleb’s lights flicker gently around them, guiding them in what Molly hopes is the right direction. It’s difficult to know exactly where they are, but he’s not worried. They’ve got plenty of time to get back, although sleep is starting to creep up on him.

As they round a corner, Caleb puts out an arm to stop Molly, and Molly’s foot lands heavily, splashing in something that is absolutely going to stain his boot. The splash echoes through the sewer for longer than it should – and instead of fading away, it’s getting louder. Closer. More solid.

“I think now might be the time to run,” Caleb says, backing away, and Molly is about to reply when a pair of eyes shine out of the darkness. Frumpkin hisses, fur standing on end, and in a click of Caleb’s fingers he’s gone.

“We’re just passing through,” Molly says, mentally willing the lights to float further on and illuminate whatever those eyes are attached to, “We mean you no harm.” It’s a difficult thing to say with one hand ready at a sword hilt, but Molly manages just fine.

“That’s right, we were just leaving,” Caleb adds, and he takes another few steps backwards, bumping into Molly as he goes and pushing him backwards, too. As they step away, the eyes come closer. And closer. A low rumble emanates from whatever the creature is. Through the darkness, a snout becomes visible, cracked open to reveal a jaw full of ragged teeth. From what they can see, it resembles a rat, if rats were shoulder-height and covered in patches of raw, bleeding sores. Its eyes dart around wildly, unfocused. It takes another step closer, into the light. Some of its toes are missing.

“I think it’s blind,” Molly breathes, as quietly as he can, into Caleb’s ear.

“It can still smell us,” Caleb nods towards the rat, which is twitching its nose in their direction.

“Whose fault is that?” Molly says, and he takes a measured step backwards, pulling Caleb with him by the sleeve of his coat. Quiet as they’re being, the rat surges forwards, and Molly pulls out one of his swords, the one on the opposite side to Caleb. There’s only so much room in this part of the sewer, and the last thing he wants is to skewer his companion by accident.

As soon as the rat comes close enough, Molly strikes with his sword, slashing across its face. It squeals in pain, and anger, and charges forwards, blood pouring from the gash below its eyes. He swings again, this time cutting deep into the rat’s shoulder, and it stumbles but doesn’t go down, sword stuck firmly into its thick flesh. Before Molly can pull out the sword, the rat pulls away, twisting the hilt out of Molly’s grasp, and it clatters free somewhere into the darkness of the sewer. And then the rat is upon him.

It happens in a split second – the wind is knocked out of him as he falls backwards, foul snout thrust into his face, open wide and ready to snap off his head at the neck – then the rat screams and writhes and recoils away, covered in flames that eat at its skin. In the midst of the smoke and stench of burning meat, Caleb stands frozen. His right hand is held up high, fingers poised to snap, left hand still firmly gripping his library books. Molly rolls to his feet, draws his second sword, and plunges it through the rat’s chest.

Apart from the crackle of the dying fire, the sewer is silent. While he splashes about looking for his sword, Molly checks for injuries. His back hurts from where he was knocked down, and there’s a shallow cut on one arm, but that looks to be it. His foot knocks into something heavy, and he bends down to fish his sword out of the water.

“You could have set me on fire,” Molly says, turning back to look at Caleb. He’s going to have to clean his swords when they get back. And his clothes. And himself.

“That wasn’t my intention,” Caleb says, looking forlornly at the charred carcass of the rat for a brief moment, and he readjusts his grip on his books.

“Thank you,” Molly says, and Caleb’s expression lightens up a fraction. “Come on, let’s go.”

Now, adrenaline thrumming through his veins, sleep is the last thing on Molly’s mind. They keep an ear out for any more rats, but the rest of their path seems to be blessedly empty. As they reach an exit more familiar than the others, Caleb climbs out first, holding the metal cover open for Molly to squeeze through. For the first time in about twenty minutes, Molly can breathe deeply again. A click of Caleb’s fingers, and Frumpkin has returned, judging both of them with his little cat stare. He’s not impressed.

On their way back to the inn, all three of them stick close to the shadows, avoiding the parts of the street where a few lone travellers are still walking. It doesn’t take too long to get there. More than usual, the inn is a palace of cleanliness, and Molly is suddenly very aware of the state he’s in.

“Will they let us inside?” Molly pulls Caleb aside before they reach the front entrance, hastily rubbing at the worse stains on his coat and tugging something wet and lumpy out of his hair. He flings it down the street without looking at what it is.

Caleb shrugs, “They let me in, don’t they?”

“You’re worse than usual,” Molly says, and he uses his damp sleeve to scrub at a smear of dirt caked onto the side of Caleb’s face. He cringes away before Molly can get the worst of it off, but he looks half decent. A quarter decent. “We’ll just hide behind a crowd.”

“What crowd?” Caleb asks, and he’s right – for how quiet the inn had been when Molly had left, it’s empty now. “It’s well past midnight by now.”

“Then we’ll just rush through and hope they don’t notice,” Molly says, and Caleb spits out a quick _You’ve been spending too much time with Beauregard_ before Molly slips through the front door of the inn. To his credit, Caleb does follow, and they walk briskly through the reception. The woman at the front desk is nodding off, but the movement catches her eye.

“Keep walking,” Molly mutters.

“Excuse me? Sir?” The receptionist calls out across the room, but they’re gone, breaking into a run as they reach the stairs. Molly beats Caleb to the top, and when he gets there he doubles over, laughing as quietly as he can. Caleb is only a few steps behind, and he hauls Molly further along the corridor, away from the sound of footsteps coming from the reception. After a few seconds of checking room numbers, Molly bursts through the door of his room, pulling Caleb through and bolting the door behind them.

“My cat,” Caleb says, eyes on the locked door that Molly’s leaning on, and a faint scratching comes from the other side. Molly catches his eye and cracks up again, bending over with laughter, and this time Caleb laughs, too, a little more reserved but laughter all the same.

“This is my room, too, you know,” Fjord says, sitting up on the bed in the dark.

“I’m sorry,” Caleb says, catching Molly’s eye, but neither of them make any motion to leave.

“Fine, I’ll go,” Fjord slides out of bed and ambles to the door, letting in a sliver of light as he opens it, “You two are stinking up the place, anyway.” He claps Caleb on the back, who winces, and as he crosses the corridor they can hear him squawking at Frumpkin to move out of the way.

“We do smell like shit,” Molly says as soon as the door is closed, Frumpkin slipping through at the last second and leaping onto the bed to clean himself, “I’m going to run a bath. Do you want in?”

“Ah, I’m fine,” Caleb shakes his head, and he wavers a little under Molly’s hard glare, “Maybe a short one. I’m not really a bath person, though. I don’t know.”

“And I’m not really a person to skip baths, but it’s your choice,” Molly shrugs, and he makes his way to the bathroom, stripping off his coat on the way. Whatever liquid it had gathered in the sewer seems to have mostly solidified by now, leaving one sleeve uncomfortably stiff. He dumps it on the floor.

The bathroom is better, more spacious, fancier, than any bathroom Molly’s ever seen. And he’s seen a lot. The tub is reasonably big, claw-footed, and not a glorified metal bucket, which already puts it well above the rest in his estimations. And there are things to put in it, that aren’t specifically for cleaning. They’re just for fun. This is shaping up to be the most fun bath Molly’s ever had with only one person in it, and he hasn’t even run it yet.

Waiting for the bath to fill isn’t particularly exciting, and the idea of being up to his neck in warm water is making Molly all the more impatient. While the room fills with steam, he perches on the edge of the bath, picking bits of sewer and roof out of his hair. In the time it takes to strip down the rest of his clothes, the bath is half full, which is decidedly enough to sit in. It’s a little too hot, but it unwinds some of the tension in his legs. It’s bearable.

Whatever tiny bottles of nice-smelling stuff the inn had laid out are soon dumped into the bath. The water goes from clear to grey to a dirty pink, before it’s covered up by six inches of thick bubbles that come up to Molly’s chest. He sinks down and turns the tap off with his foot, having to stretch just a little to reach the other end of the tub without dunking his face in the water. Now, with no background noise of running water, Molly can make out a faint knocking at the door.

“Mollymauk,” Caleb says, muffled through the door, “If you leave the water in the bath I’ll have one after you.”

“Just come in,” Molly flicks water out of the bath with his foot, “It’s not like we haven’t been in a bath together before.”

There’s only silence from the other side, for long enough that Molly’s worried he’s said the wrong thing, but then the door swings slowly open.

“This is a one-time thing,” Caleb says, “Because I’m tired.”

Molly turns around and smirks at the wall while Caleb gets undressed, mostly for Caleb’s sake, and the water surges upwards as he climbs in. Despite how big the bath is, it’s still not quite large enough for two fully grown men – still, they make it work. Caleb tucks his knees up to his chest while Molly dunks his head underwater to wet his hair, then lathers a handful of soap into it.

“I can do yours, if you want,” Molly offers, tugging the knots out of his hair.

Caleb begins to shake his head, then stops himself and bends his head forwards slightly instead, “Might as well.”

A few mangled flowers are still stuck in Caleb’s hair, and it only takes a moment to pluck them all out. There’s a fish-shaped jug on the dressing table by the side of the bath, and Molly fills it with water, pouring it over Caleb’s head. His hair darkens to almost brown, flattened over his face, and what expression Molly can make out is unimpressed but he doesn’t complain. Then there’s soap. It’s more difficult to work it through Caleb’s hair than his own, and Caleb hisses through his teeth as a ring catches on an especially matted clump. After a few minutes, he uses the jug to rinse off the now-brown soap, and he starts again.

After the second round of washing, the bathroom door cracks open, and Jester peeks her head around, “Fjord said I shouldn’t come in here.”

“Fjord is right,” Caleb says, but Jester saunters in anyway, plopping down on the little chair next to the table, swinging her legs.

“What are you guys up to?” Despite how late it is, she’s so full of energy the room is buzzing with it, and she looks between the two of them expectantly.

“Jester, dear,” Molly says, bringing one arm out of the water to point at his coat and dripping water all over the floor, “There are pastries in my coat, and they’re mostly still good. You can take as many as you like if you give us some alone time.”

Jester dives for the coat, shaking out half a dozen pastries and gathering them up in her arms, stuffing one in her mouth, “You can’t bribe me to leave, Molly. I’m going because I want to. You guys are really boring.” She leaves, pulling the door behind her without quite closing it.

Now Jester’s gone, the room seems quieter before, and as Molly pours water over Caleb’s hair again it feels as though the sound of splashing water should wake up everyone on their floor.

“She’s fun,” Molly comments, trying to keep the mood up, and Caleb shrugs a little. The bubbles have all but disappeared, leaving only a sudsy layer over their less than clear, less than warm bathwater.

“It’s an interesting group,” Caleb says, and he doesn’t seem to have more to offer than that. Instead of trying to resurrect the conversation, Molly grabs the soap and a washcloth and starts scrubbing the sewer filth off himself. Since his clothes got the worst of it there’s not much to clean, apart from a streak of dried blood on one arm, but he stinks. He does what he can, then passes the cloth to Caleb.

“Can you get my back?” Molly asks, turning around before Caleb can answer, slopping water over the side of the bath as he does so. The cloth lands on his back with a wet slap, and then he feels it being dragged across his back, softly at first and then more firmly as Caleb starts to put some effort into it.

Considering how often Molly tries to get a bath, he stays pretty clean, and it doesn’t take too long for Caleb to give up trying to get him any cleaner. He tries to hand the cloth back, and Molly gently pushes his hand away.

It takes a lot longer for Caleb to get clean. He starts with his face and works downwards, and Molly turns back around to face him and pretends like he’s not watching. He is, though, and he knows that Caleb knows what he’s doing. By the time the water’s gone cold, Caleb looks more or less clean, a little brighter and scrubbed red in places.

“I think I’m done,” Caleb says, and he drops the cloth over the side of the bath. Molly turns his back again as Caleb climbs out, and he waits for the door to click shut before he gets out himself. The floor is wet and cold, and he shuffles onto a rug as he pulls the plug out of the bath. So many feet have trampled the rug down until it’s almost flat, but it’s still warmer than the floor, and it’s so much softer too.

Once the bath is empty, there’s a layer of grit and scum coating the bottom, and it takes a couple of rinses with the jug to get most of it down the drain. Molly wraps himself in several towels – he’d be happy with one or none at all, but they’re so comfortable and the room is freezing now that the hot water’s gone.

The bedroom is a little warmer, and Caleb is already dressed, hair mostly dry and even fluffy in places. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at nothing, but he jolts to his feet when he realises Molly’s in the room. His face looks different when it’s not streaked with dirt, and he looks younger and friendlier for it, somehow.

“You don’t have to go,” Molly says, scrubbing at his hair with a towel to dry it faster. A sodden curl tumbles over his right eye.

“Thank you, but I should be going to bed,” Caleb says, gathering up the books he’d left on Molly’s bed, “We have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow.” He heads for the doorway and Molly follows, joining him just as he pulls the door open.

“That we do,” Molly says, “Have a good night, Caleb.”

“You too,” Caleb says, taking a step out of the door, and he pauses and turns back, “It’s been good to spend time with you, Mollymauk.”

“You too. It could be nice to do that again sometime,” Molly says, watching as Caleb nods stiffly and leaves, crossing the hallway and knocking on one of the opposite doors. The door jerks open and a pair of small green goblin hands drag him inside, and then Caleb is gone.

Molly shuts the door. Somewhere between then and the break of dawn he crawls into bed and falls asleep, and this time he doesn’t dream at all.


End file.
